Female CEOs paid less

Female chief executives of nonprofit organizations receive less total compensation than men in comparable jobs, a new report says.

The compensation gap for fiscal 2000 holds true at nonprofits of all sizes and continues a trend reported last year for fiscal 1998 and 1999 by GuideStar, an online database of tax and financial information about U.S. nonprofits.

The gap also holds true for most jobs at nonprofits of most sizes, although the median compensation for women in some jobs is more than for men, says GuideStar, which says its report is the only study on nonprofit compensation based exclusively on data from Form 990 information returns that nonprofits submit to the Internal Revenue Service.

Median compensation — salary, benefits, deferred compensation, expense accounts and other allowances — indicates the compensation is lower for half the people employed in a particular job category and higher for the other half.

The gender gap in CEO compensation is greatest at nonprofits with annual budgets of more than $50 million, with women at those organizations receiving only 69 percent of the compensation paid to their male counterparts.

The gap is the smallest at nonprofits with annual budgets of $1 million to $5 million, with women receiving 88 percent of the compensation paid to men.

At nonprofits with annual budgets of $1 million to $2.5 million, for example, the median compensation is $64,953 for women and $73,805 for men, while at nonprofits with annual budgets of $2.5 million to $5 million, the median compensation is $78,744 for women and $89,500 for men.

At nonprofits with annual budgets of more than $50 million, the median compensation is $186,088 for women and $271,032 for men.

Median compensation is higher for women in the following positions at nonprofits with the following annual budgets: